Flexible cable conduits are known which utilize a plastic sheath to surround a control cable and where the sheath in turn is surrounded by a layer of spiraled lay wires. In such installations the plastic sheath serves as an anti-friction element for the control cable while the spiraled lay wires provide strength to the conduit to resist tension and compression loads. The lay wires themselves are enclosed or constructed by wires or rovings to prevent the lay wires from spreading or "bird caging" on application of compression loads to the conduit as may occur when a control cable within the conduit is moved in a direction to produce bends in the conduit. The lay wires along with their constructing wires or rovings in turn may be enclosed in an extruded plastic sheath to seal the lay wires and rovings from moisture. Such a construction is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,063,303.
In the type of construction as discussed the use of separate wires or rovings to contain the lay wires and of a separate plastic sheath to provide a seal for the conduit necessarily increases expense of manufacture since separate steps in assembling the plastic sealing sheath and the rovings to the lay wires are required to produce the conduit.
It is therefore an object of my invention to provide for an improved flexible conduit construction wherein assembly of a conduit involving any separate application of an outer sealing sheath and application of wires or rovings to constrain the lay wires of a conduit is eliminated but which at the same time will provide a constraint means for the lay wires as well as a sealing means to impart water tight integrity and protection against foreign materials and abrasion to the conduit.
Further it is an object of my invention to provide for an improved flexible conduit in which the conduit may have a combined sealing means and lay wire constraint means applied in a continuous in-line fabrication resulting in a more economical manufacture of the conduit.